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You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

nytimes.com

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Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#141

Post by cantSpellSober »

jaas wrote: post #19
chii wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't apple allow the owner to choose to decouple the pairing? It's telling why they dont.

Because thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them. If they knew that some significant percentage were not locked they would be worth stealing again, and if it’s locked they just throw it in a dumpster. The fact that your phone is locked protects everyone else as well.

> thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them

Do you even believe this? I haven't seen any examples of thieves saying "stick em up! Oh, iPhone? Have a nice day"

Easy counterexample:

> an entire wall of iPhones (approximately 436) were gone

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-...

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#142

Post by CivBase »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #126
CivBase wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, security requires constant updates and updates cost money, so it's not realistic to use a device for a decade, because you won't have security updates from any company at that point. Apple has better updates over time, which is reflected in it's higher resale values. I'm absolutely still using PCs from over a decade ago and I'm still getting security updates.

You're getting updates for PCs over 10 years old because thanks to the way IBM PC clones work, the OS kernel can be independently updated from the drivers of the peripherals, not tied to them as it is in the ARM ecosystem with obscure FW blobs that are tied to the interfaces of a particular Android/Linux version. On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI has…

Sounds to me like a design problem, not a justification for letting companies maintain control over the goods purchased from them.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#143

Post by AshamedCaptain »

oneplane wrote: post #93
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At yet here we are with nobody having a better plan. The issue is still the same as it has been for the past 20 years: making a (PKI-based) security feature means you can never share the secret parts or make it optional, otherwise it is immediately defeated. You can't have selective security where it works sometimes but not all the times. And trading out that security system is not an option. This is BS. A security…

It seems you have no clue what you are talking about. A PKI where the CA private key is not secret is not really a PKI now is it? As for asking buyers: I doubt 0.001% of buyers in any market segments has a clue about PKI or public key cryptography at all. This is E2EE "lets have a government back-door" all over again: IT DOES NOT WORK. The Clipper chip was not that log ago, now was it?

> A PKI where the CA private key is not secret is not really a PKI now is it?

At the end of the day, _you_ are the one in control of the list of CAs that you trust. If you are, it is (maybe) security. If you aren't, it is DRM. This is a simple rule with surprisingly little grey areas. See eIDAS...

> I doubt 0.001% of buyers in any market segments has a clue about PKI

Does it really matter how is the DRM implemented? They don't want to hear about Apple DRMing iPhone repairs, end of story.

PKI is also not the only way to implement this.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#144

Post by FirmwareBurner »

CivBase wrote: post #142
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting updates for PCs over 10 years old because thanks to the way IBM PC clones work, the OS kernel can be independently updated from the drivers of the peripherals, not tied to them as it is in the ARM ecosystem with obscure FW blobs that are tied to the interfaces of a particular Android/Linux version. On Widows at least, drivers from the Windows Vista days still work just fine on Windows 11 as the ABI has…

Sounds to me like a design problem, not a justification for letting companies maintain control over the goods purchased from them.

Sure, but since time immemoriam this has been left to the "free market" to sort itself out, and the "free market" has let us to this point.

Should some government regulatory body like the EU intervene to force their hand? Maybe.

But do remember that in the "old-days" of dumbphones and featurephones you were getting no SW updates at all ever and replacing your phone every 2-3 years was the norm back then.

It's only now that we're thinking about this as we start to think about phones more as general purpose computers in our pocket and less as phone dialing and messaging devices, like in the old days.

One thing's for sure, it's that the free market will never self regulate itself on this matter, same how it has not self regulated itself in the auto industry were it not for the EPA and EU, we'd still be buying ICE cars that turn our cities into smog if we were to leve emissions to the auto manufacturers.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#145

Post by jqpabc123 »

nikanj wrote: post #87

I paid hundreds of thousands for a home and the city still controls many aspects of it

They control aspects that can adversely affect others in the community --- with disclosure and mutual consent.

Restricting repairs to your iPhone only affects you and Apple's profits --- and there was no disclosure or consent --- i.e. buyer's weren't told in advance.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#146

Post by NoboruWataya »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #131
NoboruWataya wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flipping the question around, what exactly are you worried they will do? I'm on your "side" on this in that I dislike closed ecosystems, spyware and not having control over my own devices. But I am not in tech and the vast majority of people I know don't care about this and likely never will, and every year that goes by without Apple remotely bricking their phone with no recourse only strengthens their apathy. Trust…

>> "The user controls the program or the program controls the user" is a false dichotomy to people who spend most of their time in the real world. It is not a false dichotomy: Apple controls who gets to use iPhones and what they get to do on iPhones. Can someone use an iPhone without an Apple account? If Apple were to lock or ban a user's Apple account, what could the user do about it? Can someone run arbitrary softw…

> Can someone use an iPhone without an Apple account? If Apple were to lock or ban a user's Apple account, what could the user do about it?

> Can someone run arbitrary software of their choice on an iPhone?

These are not restrictions that are likely to be relevant to the people I am talking about.

You will ask me how I know. The statement is forward looking so obviously I can't prove it, but I know people who have happily been using iPhones for 15+ years without ever giving a thought to these questions. (I know that because I've had this same conversation with some of them.)

In the meantime, these people can go where they want, do what they want, say what they want, etc etc. They are not, in any real sense, being controlled by the software on their iPhone.

If you live in the first world, pay your bills, are not a criminal and your phone usage is mostly limited to Instagram and WhatsApp, the likelihood of your Apple account being shut down without warning or recourse is very small. So for such people, the risk is too remote to dedicate much thought to.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#147

Post by dzikimarian »

ghostpepper wrote: post #106
nstart wrote: post #95

I wish someone could ask Apple about the middle ground. You want to protect consumers? Fine. Alert customers to the use of non official parts but don’t brick any functionality then. I want Apple to tell me when that shop that promises original parts is actually giving me an original which I can track. I don’t want them stopping me from using it unless it’s genuinely incompatible at a firmware level.

I think what would happen is people would get their phone repaired by the sketchy corner store guy, ignore the warning (which would presumably only pop up after they'd gotten the non-approved part installed) and then some time later when their photos/emails/bank balance was accessed they'd go back to Apple to demand an explanation.

And Apple should tell them, that they have sketchy part. Just like Nokia did when I brought them second-hand Symbian phone to fix 15 years ago.

I paid for the repair & learned to be more careful. Nobody died.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#148

Post by jqpabc123 »

nokya wrote: post #80
emmet wrote: post #7

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…

I do not think this is a small business issue, but rather a dishonest small business owner working for disrespectful customers issue. A few months ago, I had to get a screen replacement and straight upfront asked the repair guy how much it would really (emphasized) cost me to get the screen replaced after he gave me a quote indicating that either the screen would cost nothing, or the work hours cost almost nothing. H…

I don't know anyone around me who would agree to pay a bit more just to get better service and I think that's the core issue.

The core issue is that Apple has restricted your ability to *choose* to pay less or go elsewhere --- without disclosure or consent.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#149

Post by dotnet00 »

chongli wrote: post #25
dotnet00 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

The proper comparison is not with Android phones, it’s with iPhones before Apple introduced this feature. The news reported a global drop in iPhone thefts at the time [1]. [1] https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...

I disagree that the point of comparison should be iPhones from before this functionality, the point is that the negative effects of locking all parts are not worth the amount of theft, not that they don't reduce theft.

After all, you could massively reduce burglaries too by allowing home security systems to have automated lethal turrets to shoot burglars, but that's considered way too far in terms of social cost by pretty much every place.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#150

Post by harph »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #146
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "The user controls the program or the program controls the user" is a false dichotomy to people who spend most of their time in the real world. It is not a false dichotomy: Apple controls who gets to use iPhones and what they get to do on iPhones. Can someone use an iPhone without an Apple account? If Apple were to lock or ban a user's Apple account, what could the user do about it? Can someone run arbitrary softw…

> Can someone use an iPhone without an Apple account? If Apple were to lock or ban a user's Apple account, what could the user do about it? > Can someone run arbitrary software of their choice on an iPhone? These are not restrictions that are likely to be relevant to the people I am talking about. You will ask me how I know. The statement is forward looking so obviously I can't prove it, but I know people who have ha…

> using iPhones for 20+ years

You probably meant Apple devices in general? The iPhone is not yet 20 years old.

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